A War in Fifty Words
by The Mad Poet
Summary: Star Ocean: Til the End of Time. Fifty sentences for fifty moments in time, done as a timed challenge with Osidiano and FOR THE GLORY OF AIRYGLYPH.


**Disclaimer:** Super not my characters.  
 **Author's Note:** 50 Sentences challenge done as a timed challenge between Osidiano and myself, which I did wrong in addition to losing, haha, whoops. Though a '50 Sentences' is supposed to be about two characters, I managed to make it more of a 'Airyglph/Aquaria War' general thing. Unbeta'd, and contains copious headcanons regarding the fictional nations, politics, and characters involved.

 **I swear to God I am going to work on Thou Shalt Not again as soon as I unpack my notes and PS2.  
Until this, please consider this a sneak preview of some of the Elicoor headcanons that will be coloring future chapters.**

 **FOR THE GLORY OF AIRYGLYPH!**

* * *

 **50 Sentences: Beta Set  
Fandom: Star Ocean : Til the End of Time  
Characters: Albel, Arzei, the warring nations of Elicoor**

 **#01 – Walking  
** It did not take much practice to tell which kingdom a person hailed from simply by the way that they walked.

 **#02 – Waltz  
** Arzei was not at all embarrassed that most of the dances he knew were Aquarian, perhaps because Arzei was not embarrassed by anything.

 **#03 – Wishes  
** "I wish it didn't have to come to this, but if wishes were bread, it wouldn't have to."

 **#04 – Wonder  
** How often Albel wanted to ask, 'did you plan for this, as well?', but did not dare to say it.

 **#05 – Worry  
** On the longest, darkest nights, he thought about the monster he had made and prayed that it would never crush the man.

 **#06 – Whimsy  
** Someday there might be a real peace between them, yes; and someday Apris might return to the world as well.

 **#07 – Waste/Wasteland  
** And for this desert, they would destroy a nation.

 **#08 - Whiskey and rum  
** In Aquaria they call the men of the mountain kingdom drunks; in Airyglyph, they know that sometimes it is simply all you have to put on your stomach at all.

 **#09 – War  
** The village stank of blood and thunder, and the bodies of those who had called it home lay trampled in the mud beneath the haze.

 **#10 – Weddings  
** On a clear day, you could hear the bells in Aquios all across the valley and up into the hills; in the border towns, it became customary to listen for them and celebrate the distant capitol weddings.

 **#11 – Birthday  
** It was always a cause for celebration to have survived another year.

 **#12 – Blessing  
** The church was not as important in the mountains as the vale below, but there were still no empty seats in a lean season.

 **#13 – Bias  
** "I don't know," Arzei told him, "You still look fairly Glyphian to me-" but Albel cut him off to remind him that that, of course, was only because he knew him.

 **#14 – Burning  
** No one says anything when Albel awakens, screaming, in the middle of the night; they know it is the smell of burning flesh that haunts him, and they do not begrudge him his horror at it.

 **#15 – Breathing  
** High enough in the mountains, the air was sharp with cold and sulfur alike, and it was all many lowland travelers could do to breathe in the Glyphian capitol.

 **#16 – Breaking  
** Peace and stained glass reacted the same way to dragon's fire.

 **#17 – Belief  
** There were no churches and no priests for the gods of King and Country, but they were what he believed in.

 **#18 – Balloon  
** There was a child at the gate, and when they offered it, the soldier tied its string solemnly to the pommel of his saddle before riding to war.

 **#19 – Balcony  
** It is so cold, but from here, he can see the entire mountain and the blue ghost of the valley below, and by Apris, it is so beautiful that sometimes he cannot tear himself away.

 **#20 – Bane  
** Arzei was popular with the people and the soldiers, but the nobility could be counted on to plot against him.

 **#21 – Quiet  
** It was never truly quiet in the mountains, for they rustled with the wings of dragons and rang with the howling of the wolves.

 **#22 – Quirks  
** Years in Aquaria had given Arzei any number of mannerisms no one around him quite understood.

 **#23 – Question  
** "If it's so worthless, why are you making us buy it with the blood of your people?"

 **#24 – Quarrel  
** Sometimes it was hard to imagine that everything had started with a siblings' quarrel, but sometimes, that is simply history.

 **#25 – Quitting  
** His armies were gone in a blaze of light, the land they had fought for ruined; he had lost the war utterly, and there was no doubt of the king's next move.

 **#26 – Jump  
** The number of times Albel had broken something leaping from a high place that Arzei urged him onto was the source of many of Woltar's most embarrassing court stories.

 **#27 – Jester  
** There was some speculation that the title of the Holy Queen Mother's 'chief ambassador' was actually a euphemism.

 **#28 – Jousting  
** When the Lightning Brigade holds their jousts, the people line up to watch, and they laugh when the ground shakes so powerfully beneath the hooves of lums that the smallest spectators topple over.

 **#29 – Jewel  
** Aquaria glittered like a mad jeweler's fancy, untouched by the horrors of the border regions, and for this as much as anything it was determined that the holy city must fall.

 **#30 – Just  
** "Of course it isn't a 'just war', there's no such thing."

 **#31 – Smirk  
** No one would have ever accused Albel's expression of being an actual smile.

 **#32 – Sorrow  
** If anyone had thought to ask the Queen if she had any regrets, she was not certain she could have kept herself from putting her face in her hands and weeping.

 **#33 – Stupidity  
** There was nothing Elena accused Arzei of more often as the years went by.

 **#34 – Serenade  
** The dragon flute had many songs; as he saw their power, Albel determined that he would learn them all.

 **#35 – Sarcasm  
** There was a running bet that Albel and Vox were incapable of speaking to each other without at least a little sneering.

 **#36 – Sordid  
** It was possible that Aquarians found the banalities of active war to be beneath them, and that was why they chose attrition instead, but to Arzei their way seemed far more vile and cruel.

 **#37 – Soliloquy  
** They were all quiet men, to be honest, but if any of Airyglyph's war leaders decided they were going to talk, they did not particularly care if anyone was in the room with them or not.

 **#38 – Sojourn  
** There was no one who doubted Aquaria had changed Arzei; there were few who would ever know how much, or for that matter, how little.

 **#39 – Share  
** In the mountains the villages lived like the wolf packs, sharing heat and food alike.

 **#40 – Solitary  
** The Aquarian line scattered before a single figure prowling through the haze: smoke swirling about his head, iron talons ticking against his palm, the scent of burnt flesh and blood all about him.

 **#41 – Nowhere  
** There was a desolation to the Black Brigade's Kirlsa training ground which recruits were daunted by and veterans came to prefer.

 **#42 – Neutral  
** The ancient temple belonged to no one any more; it swallowed both king and queen with equanimity in its vastness.

 **#43 – Nuance  
** "It's all politics, you know, and you have to understand the message you're sending—even the most blunt, brutish execution is politics; it's all in the presentation."

 **#44 – Near  
** More than simply reaching out and touching it, victory had been so close he had rest his palm against it and felt its heartbeat.

 **#45 – Natural  
** Some people were simply meant to lead, he reasoned; of course it was natural that he should correct the circumstances that did not put him in a position to do so.

 **#46 – Horizon  
** Canons lined the ridge, their gaping maws crackling with caged energy as the combined might of Airyglyph thundered across the field towards them.

 **#47 – Valiant  
** "Sometimes, it takes more courage to be a monster than a hero."

 **#48 – Virtuous  
** There had never been a better man in either kingdom than Glau Nox, and there never would be; he was mourned unanimously, and even the dragons wept.

 **#49 – Victory  
** Aquaria began to realize too late that it is hard to win a war against a land that has learned to see every new sunrise as a hard-fought triumph.

 **#50 - Defeat  
** It was fine, of course—there was always another plan.


End file.
